Sebb Bash sets a calmer tone for the often abrasive and always abstract E L U C I D in what may be the MC’s best album to date on I Guess U Had To Be There.
Release date: March 13, 2026 | Backwoodz Studioz | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
I was an English major. I have spent hundreds hours of my life reading and analyzing literature. I wanted to be a poet, until I found that my poetry was just anger at the world’s injustices without the love to find beauty in the details. When it came to music, I always appreciated intelligent lyrics, but it has always been more about the tones, atmosphere, and composition for me, with the exception of hip hop. Rap lyrics were always my favorite part, diving in and chewing on layers of metaphor and similes. It has kept me a fan of hip hop for over half of my life, and as such, there isn’t much that I hear these days that I can’t get to the bottom of and interpret the poetry with relative ease. That is until I became a fan of E L U C I D.
One half of the abstract rap duo Armand Hammer, E L U C I D always took a second seat to my fandom ofthe other half, billy woods. Not that E L U C I D isn’t great, but I think ultimately woods is easier for me to digest, often rapping in a more narrative style while E L U C I D switches his flows and intentions in ways that aren’t obvious. He can drop heat, like the jaw-dropping line from “Microdose” off of Rome (2017), ‘I was born the year of this country’s last recorded lynching/my question is who stopped recording,’ but that was almost a decade ago. Since then, E L U C I D has just gotten wilder and more abstract in his lyrics. I loved his last major solo album, 2024’s REVALATOR, but I don’t think I could tell you what most of the songs mean. The tones and vibes hit remarkably hard, though. So, I’ve been fretting over writing this review, because my instincts are to quote lyrics and talk about their meanings, but that shit isn’t easy.
I Guess U Had To Be There is E L U C I D‘s best album, first and foremost. Producer Sebb Bash (The Alchemist‘s favorite producer) tones things down from the more abrasive REVALATOR, and E L U C I D responds in kind, his deep and often aggressive voice feels less dramatic, giving each bar and word space to land rather than hearing them rip apart through the atmosphere on a collision course to the tail end of a bull in a China shop. We don’t get a lyric sheet. There are no PR essays detailing the artists’ intent. E L U C I D is elusive on purpose. He even tells you as much on the first song, “First Light” where he says, ‘they found his utterances puzzling,’ later adding, ‘no translation, we testing spirit, furthest, nearest, under the sound of my voice you feel me.’ It was somewhere around my seventh or eighth listen to this album when my fretfulness became a joke, as I realized those lyrics are a mission statement.
E L U C I D doesn’t spin narratives, mostly; he free associates rhymes and concepts leaving meaning to the listener. He is like the Samuel Beckett of rap, deconstructing ideas and expectations until you are left dizzy with details that only lead you back to the basics of the form: beats and lyrics. If the lyrics are a string of ideas and vignettes, then what’s wrong with that? Especially when you get nuggets like, ‘fine young cannibal, I made my first million in human hair‘ on “Cantata” or the closing bar of “Make Me Wise”, where he says, ‘I rap husky, beat juggles at the baby shower/dress like I sell sherbert, even gods get bored so I pretend I’m you.’ Whether you glean meaning from his songs or not, they are always entertaining and thought provoking.
Bash delivers incredible beats here, as well. “Coonspeak” is the most experimental, off kilter lo-fi organ and dissonant strums of a string instrument with a repetition of ‘get the head, the body follow‘ that collectively feels like Madlib at his weirdest, calling to mind Steve Reich‘s “Come Out” which Madlib sampled for “America’s Most Blunted” on Madvilliany. The song then flips into a jazzy and soulful sample, and the juxtaposition brings everything back to vibe of most of the rest of the album. Bash and E L U C I D aren’t alone, either. “Equiano” features contemporary jazz master Shabaka for a particularly jazzy and upbeat number, even with lyrics like ‘live from the vomitorium, no access to the roof.’ “Hands N Feet” features a stellar verse from Estee Nack, (‘I go over their heads like Israeli drones‘) and “The Lorax” brings billy woods back into the fold over another beat that feels indebted to Madlib. Breeze Brewin leads off “Fainting Goats”, as well. Each rapper featured adds their own abstractions to E L U C I D‘s kaleidoscope while delivering their own signature styles.
For as resistant to easy interpretation as E L U C I D is, he still knows how to deliver heavy concepts with gravitas. The delightfully funky “I Say Self” props up his bars while he rebukes outside influence from his own perseverance. Easily the most straightforward message on I Guess U Had To Be There comes from the most abrasive track, album closer “Parental Advisory”. This track takes on the psychological and emotional consequences of child abuse, following how trauma can reach al its dire conclusions on the psyche. It is a powerful and clear message of what should be obvious: don’t hit children.
I Guess U Had To Be There is definitely abstract, but the beats from Sebb Bash give E L U C I D a canvas to paint on rather than his usual brick and mortar. Whether you see a Pollack or a Bosch in these songs is irrelevant, it is the brush strokes that are important. As part of one of my favorite rap duos, E L U C I D always had a fan in me. This was bolstered by seeing him live last month, but even more so by this album, which has given me a whole new level of appreciation for what he does and at the same time liberated me from feeling like every damn thing has to be so concrete in hip hop. Backwoodz Studioz owner and the other half of Armand Hammer, billy woods, called E L U C I D ‘Backwoodz‘s secret weapon,’ and I get it, now. Secret weapons aren’t obvious, obviously. They strike unexpectedly, leaving victims dazed and surprised, and I Guess U Had To Be There is the sound of that weapon firing off, ready to wreck anyone who doubts it, easily the best hip hop project of the year, so far.
